Garden 2.0 is in Motion ...

... because so many different sources offer so many different planting times under so many different conditions that it's pretty much just guess work.

For example, one source tells me (for my area) to have started bell pepper seeds indoors by June 11th, for transplant outdoors by August 6 ... and "N/A" next to "start seeds outdoors by ..." Similar information for tomatoes, etc.

Two things:

1) I've given up on starting seeds in cells, let alone indoors, because I've just not had a lot of good luck with that; and

2) While I may not plant all crops on the same day, I'm not going to hop around planting each crop on a different day, over the course of weeks. Everything's going in over the course of a week or two, although in two separate swoops.

That may produce worse results, but while I'm trying to put gardening just a little bit higher on my priority list, I'm not going to be putting it anywhere near "full-time job and constant worry."

Making sure I have fertile soil, putting the stuff in the ground, feeding it, watering it, weeding it, and harvesting it is pretty much my limit.

So, this morning (at pretty high density -- a 4x4 plot) I planted four cucumber, seven zucchini, ten tomato, about 20 radish, and 15 bell pepper seeds. The squash and cucumber have some metal framing to climb, and the tomatoes are in those round metal "cages."

Some time in the next few days, I'll do another 4x4 space with, likely, an onion set (still have to go buy some), some kind of lettuce or spinach, and maybe peas with more climbing structures.

The guide I'm going by says corn goes in the ground by August 16 and cauliflower is to be planted inside by August 13 and outside by September 10, so I plan to put them, and tobacco, in the ground in early August, and use whatever room I happen to have left for potatoes, cantaloupe, and maybe more zucchini. Between now and then I'll be getting the space for that stuff weed-free and tilling some compost into it (I still have corn that may or may not be producing edible ears to harvest from part of that space).

Hopefully that means a reasonably bountiful harvest circa October. I'll try to remember to take and post pictures when there's something more than bare dirt to take pictures of.

Garden 1.0 produced some stuff that got eaten. Not as much as I'd have preferred -- a lot got grown, picked, and went to waste -- but that just gives me more information on what to bother planting (and how much -- we had enough cucumbers to open a pickle factory) and what not to.